Hayward is Reminding me of D. James

[willie warrior]

He keeps chucking up the threes, and is not making any.

Once again, he is stinking it up.

[CrazyEcho]

You are one negative dood.  Relax.

[Ellenson Guerrero]

What alternative scoring option do you suggest? Mo Acker driving the lane? Dwight Buycks turning it over? Joe Fulce falling over throwing something over his shoulder? Cmon he's got to shoot.

[MR.HAYWARD]

agreed athe best offense is a balanced offense but given who we are who would you rather see shoot the ball...as frustrating as it can be would would you have shoot besides hayward, Butler and DJO?

[GregClausenForever]

Clearly we should run the Brian Wardle set and start setting quadruple screens to get him better looks.

[MUSF]

agreed athe best offense is a balanced offense but given who we are who would you rather see shoot the ball...as frustrating as it can be would would you have shoot besides hayward, Butler and DJO?

You're right, those 3 should probably get a majority of the shots but we need to get them good looks via screens and ball movement.  When they get open looks, they usually score.  What killed us was trying to create off the dribble drive against a bigger team that plays excellent defense close to the basket.  How many times did those guys charge into the Badger front line and throw up a contested shot or get blocked?  When we forced them guard the perimeter and moved the ball around, we were successful.

Our undoing tonight wasn't on the offensive end.  We couldn't keep their guards out of the paint, and our help defense was horrendous.  I was shocked at the lapses on defense.  I can't remember the last time UWs guards could break us down with the dribble drive.  Buzz better refocus these guys on D or it will be a very long and frustrating season.  It's just one game.  Let's hope these guys get commited to playing tough D.

[77ncaachamps]

Please.

This is a team-centered guy who sacrifices enough for HIS team.
That's right: it's his team. The amigos are gone and buzz is asking him once again to play the 5 but still play like a 2-5.

I'd let lazar shoot the trey any day over DJ.

[warthog-driver]

He keeps chucking up the threes, and is not making any.

Once again, he is stinking it up.

Lazar Hayward is a leader and he is doing it as leaders do - from the front by example. When you are in command, command! This kid has my vote.

[Murffieus]

Lazar needs to get the ball back out for the trey when they double down on him.

Also he is all over the floor----needs better boundaries to groove his production----can't be all things to all positions----Lazar is talented but not that talented.

[muball]

Tough for Lazar to do what he did last year, we have no guard penetration/kickback from Mo and Cubie as that is not in their skillset. Dwight and DJO are still adjusting to DivI. This has a significant impact on where Zar gets his shots.

On defense UW killed us with guard penetration the 1st time in years. We lack height and strength with Mo and Cubie. DJO and Dwight still learning. UW guards had like 40 pts combined against us.

[MR.HAYWARD]

MUSF- your quote..

Our undoing tonight wasn't on the offensive end.  We couldn't keep their guards out of the paint, and our help defense was horrendous.  I was shocked at the lapses on defense.  I can't remember the last time UWs guards could break us down with the dribble drive.  Buzz better refocus these guys on D or it will be a very long and frustrating season.  It's just one game.  Let's hope these guys get commited to playing tough D.


you are absolutely correct.  However, if you cannot stop dribble penetration nothing else matters.  When acker cannot stop dribble penetration would you like a guy like lazar to help while leuer basket cuts or would like LAzar to help while Leuer sets up for the kick out 3?  The issue is not help defense although some size would be nice.  The issue is we cannot stop dribble penetration our PGs cannot guard their man.  We win the game last night with DJ, even if DJ never scores a point.  Acker either fouled his man handchecking him so he did not get blown by or he got blown by.  Cubi is alittle better on D but is a woeful on O.  I do not think it is an issue of focus or refocus, we simple are out manned at out talented at the most important position in college basketball, and it is not even close.  Remeber this team lost what 8 out of 10 games last year with Acker at the point and a better surrounding cast?  Acker seems like agood kid and i would hate ot even imagine where we would be without him but once a pg penetrates nothing good is going to happen and all the refocusing and coaching in the world does not make dribble peneatrtion something that can be absorbed by even the greatest of teams

[MUSF]

Hayward-

Defense is as much about effort as it is anything else and it appeared to me that the effort on the defensive end was not consistent yesterday.  Acker is no DJames but he and Cubi have been solid defenders in the past.  Yesterday they did move with any purpose and they played a lot of D with their hands.  On more than one occasion, MU defenders went to the playground move of letting the ballhandler beat them and attempt to knock the ball away from behind.  That is lazy b.s. that may work at the Y but has no place in BEast or Big Ten bball.  That is about effort.  Nobody slapping the floor or motivating/challenging their team mates on D.  It just didn't look like the MU defense we have been accustomed to in the past.

I disagree with your comments on help D.  You can't let a guy drive to the basket for layups in a halfcourt set.  There are definitely certain people you would rather not leave open but you can't just stick to your man and hope your buddy starts stopping his man.  You also hope that when you leave Leuer to help that someone else identifies the offensive threat and covers down.  That is how it's supposed to work.  Help defense is a team effort and I don't think we ever had 5 guys on the floor that were commited to playing tough defense.

[Nukem2]

Lazar does need to to let the game come to him as Al McGuire always preached.  Trying to do everything is not good unless you're in a groove for a particular game.  In the meantime, he needs to play within the offense and avoid the ticky-tack fouls.  Also, the staff needs to get the guys primed not to look for Laazar all the time.  Giving anyone the ball in awkward position hardly ever works.  In the end, its something that needs to be worked on by the coaches and the rest of the team aw well as Zar.

[MR.HAYWARD]

musf-

i am not proposing that Mu does not provide help defense and in fact MU does provide help defense.  Bottom line is if someone needs to slide over to help he is leaving his man.  Now your are correct that then another defender needs to rotate to defend the man the help defender just left. 

That is all absolutely great in theory however the ball moves faster than a man and a good team that gets that initial dribble penetration will then move the ball quickly enough to soon find the open man that the defense cannot quickly enough rotate to...it might be the 3rd man or the 5th.  but the bottom line is once that ball handler beats his man and forces help things go bad for the defense in a hurry. 

[akmarq]

Dominic James and Lazar are two completely different cases.  Dom had 3 VERY viable offense options on the floor with him.  Lazar has, what, maybe one or two other players to run the offense through?  A lot of what is being taken as "Lazar is forcing things," is "Lazar is the best player on a shallow team and opponents are keying in on him."

It seems like if Lazar isn't shooting, then people just gripe that Mo and David are shooting too much.  Someone has to take the shots, and I'd sure rather it be Lazar than most of our other guys (not to knock the rest of the team...they are just no where near Lazar's level)

Maybe the exception for me would be a bit more offense being run through DJ-O.